ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 17, 1996 TAG: 9602190040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on February 21, 1996.
Some comments attributed to Tim Wilson in a stroy Saturday on the
late Noel Turner were from a letter written by the Rev. Allie McNider,
youth minister at First Baptist Church.
BORN WITH SPINA BIFIDA, Noel Turner wasn't expected to live two weeks. But she beat the odds, only to die at age 20 in an auto accident.
Noel Faith Turner was 13 before she stopped being afraid to go out in public. That year, a doctor in California performed an operation that made it possible for her to get rid of the urine bag that she had to wear because she was born without a bladder.
She was finally free of the fear that the bag would burst and wet her clothes, as it did almost every day during school, said Noel's mother, Debbie Turner.
The operation completely changed Noel's life, Turner said.
"It gave her independence."
Last September, life leapt forward again for Noel, who was born with spina bifida and was paralyzed from the waist down. The 20-year-old got a white 1991 Chevrolet van, especially equipped with hand controls and a motorized lift.
The van brought Noel closer to her life's goals, Turner said.
Noel wanted to be independent. She wanted a full-time job and her own place, her mother said.
And Noel was almost there Jan. 31 when she drove from her home in Stewartsville to visit former teachers at Staunton River High School, where she graduated in 1993.
For three months at Christmas, Noel had worked as a greeter at Wal-Mart in Hunting Hills Plaza, but she now had a permanent job. She was due to start work soon at Hanover Direct, the mail-order company in Roanoke County.
Noel shared her happiness about the job and her vehicle with the teachers at the end of the school day, then left to return home.
At 3:55, as she was driving on Virginia 24, the right wheel of the van slipped off the pavement. When Noel corrected, the van crossed to the other side of the road, went into a ravine and crashed into an oak tree.
The impact smashed in the center of the van about 31/2 feet, said Noel's father, Paul "Woody" Turner. It drove the engine underneath the van.
Noel was wearing a seat belt, but the force of the crash - police and family estimate she was going about 55 mph - drove her body into the protective belt, lacerating her liver and punching four holes in her intestines.
For almost 12 days, Noel fought infection that followed her injuries, acknowledging her family by a squeeze of a hand or a pull of an arm.
The doctors were "awesome," Debbie Turner said.
But they couldn't save Noel; she died in her father's arms at 4:15 Monday morning. The following evening, more than 1,000 people came to Oakey's North Chapel between 6 and 9 p.m. to pay their respects to Noel and her family.
"Noel was an inspiration everywhere. She spoke by her actions and her looks, and she cared so much," Debbie Turner said. "You know the Bible says there are 'angels unaware.' I really think Noel was one."
Beating the odds
``Everything that ever happened to that child was a miracle," said Woody Turner, who works with an insurance company but is a minister and a Sunday school teacher.
When she was born, doctors said she'd be dead in two weeks. Her spinal cord had failed to close during her development, and that condition caused paralysis and left her without a bladder.
"We accepted that," he said.
But at every feeding time, the Turners went to the hospital nursery and squirted milk into Noel's mouth, holding her nose so she'd swallow. The baby was too weak to nurse on her own.
At one month, Noel had her first surgery, to close a hole in her stomach. Between then and June 1989, she had 22 more operations. One was a colostomy, which throughout her life required her to wear a bag for the collection of body waste. The surgery that resulted in the need for a urine-collection bag was another. The final surgery created an internal pouch where urine collected and freed Noel of the external bag.
Doctors also expected Noel would be retarded, but she wasn't.
What Noel was, most of all, her parents said, was tough, brave and loving.
"Rising above her handicap was very hard, but Noel accepted herself," Debbie Turner said.
At age 6, when Noel was in first grade, she and her class were featured in a newspaper article. It said Noel was teaching her classmates what it meant to be different, and they were helping her get around from wheelchair to desk.
When one youngster tried to define handicapped as "like cripple or blind," Noel responded:
"I'm not because I can push and roll myself. I'm not blind."
At 6, Noel could do a mean spin around the school gymnasium in her wheelchair, the story said.
"Noel was in a wheelchair, but you never saw the wheelchair. She was always beaming," said Tim Wilson, a family friend for 18 years.
"She was like a magnet. She always had a smile, and she could just draw people to her," he said. "She was never handicapped."
Noel liked to dance at Pine Spur Hunt Club to favorite country songs, especially those by heartthrob John Michael Montgomery. The autographed picture that Montgomery gave her when he appeared in Salem last year was buried with Noel in her purple casket.
Remembering Noel
``Purple. That was the supreme color to Noel," said Debbie Turner.
Flowers atop the purple casket also were purple. The Turners, including Noel's sister, Charity, all wore purple at the funeral on Valentine's Day.
The music was lively and included one of her favorites, "I'll Fly Away."
"We laughed. We sang," Woody Turner said.
Charity Turner, who celebrates her 14th birthday today, told the funeral audience of 600 that she just wanted to "have the courage Noel had to fight the battles of life."
Tim Wilson spoke of Noel as a "feisty, fiery young woman'' and said he sometimes joked that she was a "wheelchair with an attitude.''
"How many times did you give me that cocked-head, chin-in-hand look," Wilson said in his letter to Noel.
In honor of her spirit, the family said that expressions of sympathy could be made in Noel's memory to the Student Ministry Scholarship Fund at the church.
Everyone wanted Noel's death also to be Noel's "victory," her father said.
Just weeks before Noel died, she told church friends during a retreat that she couldn't wait to go to heaven so she could "run, jump and dance."
In the obituary, the family said they could rejoice because now Noel could do those things.
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Woody and Debbie Turner and daughters Charity (left)by CNBand Noel saw Santa at Dollywood in 1994. color. 2. File/1982. Fellow
grammar school students help a young Noel Turner from her wheelchair
to her desk.